I can sleep at night because I’m well on way to having a year’s worth of the highest quality food freeze dried with a 20 year shelf life. I also am a huge fan of Berkey Water filters. We live in an intense chicken, turkey, hog barn agribusiness area – lots of potential harm to our water supplies besides roundup. Berkey is king if you read the independent lab reports – it does the best job purifying the water while keeping the needed minerals in the water your body needs.
Just because we are all gonna die does not mean we need to eat junk …. ditch that high carb and super processed junk food. There are many choices of decent food out there … particularly the foods packed by Mormon canneries. Do a google search for where to find the best deals. Really, get rid of the raman noodles, progresso soups, spagetti-o and other junk … you’ll have enough problems living through SHTF without killing you gut microbio ….

Clothing: There’s a reason why characters in military movies refer to socks so often — they’re critically important and often overlooked. We love Darn Tough socks because they’re wool and a lot more durable than other brands like Smartwool. Grab a boonie hat, too; they’re easy to throw in your bag and provide better protection than most other options.

Luther’s decision to build up a pantry, she says, did more than help the family get by on a tiny budget. Later on, it would also help her through a divorce, the sudden death of her ex-partner at age 40, and getting laid off from two jobs in the automotive industry in the late 2000s. “I feel that it’s the whole reason my my mortgage didn’t go into default when I was unemployed, because I didn’t have to go to the grocery store and buy stuff,” Luther says of her experiences during the recession. “All the limited amount of money I had could go to paying the mortgage and keeping a roof over our head.”

Being from the south, we eat a lot of cornbread, so I would have to add cornmeal to this list. I think that cornbread would be an excellent option for a grid down situation. It’s very simple to make, cornmeal, and water, plus salt or any extra veggies you may have. I would also add dry pasta, and oil, for cooking and seasoning your cast iron. I may have missed this, but what about peroxide and alcohol? But you thought of a lot of things I never would have. Great list!

Interest in the movement picked up during the Clinton administration due in part to the debate surrounding the Federal Assault Weapons Ban and the ban's subsequent passage in 1994. The interest peaked again in 1999 triggered by fears of the Y2K computer bug. Before extensive efforts were made to rewrite computer programming code to mitigate the effects, some writers such as Gary North, Ed Yourdon, James Howard Kunstler,[18] and investments' advisor Ed Yardeni anticipated widespread power outages, food and gasoline shortages, and other emergencies. North and others raised the alarm because they thought Y2K code fixes were not being made quickly enough. While a range of authors responded to this wave of concern, two of the most survival-focused texts to emerge were Boston on Y2K (1998) by Kenneth W. Royce, and Mike Oehler's The Hippy Survival Guide to Y2K. Oehler is an underground living advocate, who also authored The $50 and Up Underground House Book,[19] which has long been popular in survivalist circles.
Yes, freeze dried food is pricey. With some care, however, you can find pouches, tins, and buckets on sale. The advantage of freeze dried food, and meal pouches especially, is they are lightweight and therefore transporatable. They are quick to prepare and require no planning or thinking. Add hot to boiling water, stir, let sit for a short time, and eat.
Austere Living Techniques- Everything gets harder when modern conveniences, luxuries really, disappear. Avoid feeling overwhelmed and helpless by practicing self-reliance and making do with less, now. Learn how to build cooking and camp fires, maintain hygiene, dispose of waste, control your body temperature and create what you need. This is not just for “bush life,” and will prove valuable when the electricity and gas is cut off.
One can infer from commentary in newspapers and writings of folks commenting on the current scene that weather was bad. I can remember folks still talking about the winter of ’88 when I was a kid. I do believe as a personal belief that war creates world wide different weather patterns. I believe it is due to the smoke and dust thrown into the air by shelling, now also bombing, and fires that create some temporary misalignment in world weather patterns. I know from personal observation in the desert that contrails can affect the temperature on the ground locally.
Medical is another critical group of items that should be well-stocked for the average and serious prepper alike. The most important thing about this is the individual needs of yourself and your family. Special antibiotics, diabetic medicine, hearts meds etc.. will vary from family to family. Aside from the basics be sure to understand your family’s special needs as well.
Up until that time there had been no weight categories. As a result of his stunning victory, weight categories were instituted world wide in judo. Unless you are a highly advanced black belt, advanced in inter-club competitions to the seventh or eight degree the first guy who comes along who outweighs you by probably 50 or more pounds is going to stomp you. Anyone who has had experience in street brawls is going to stomp you. There is a reason why people say, “God didn’t create all men equal, Samuel Colt did.”
#4 Knowing the right time to G.O.D is an ongoing struggle for me. I know there is no pat answer to this one. Rather, it takes observation and that “sixth sense” or “gut feeling” we are all born with but don’t always rely on. In fact I’m infamous in my family for saying, “You’ve just got to trust me on this, I’ve got a gut feeling”. Have saved myself & family from a few unpleasant issues with my “gut feeling”. It’s that whole idea of not leaving too soon but yet not waiting too long either that I struggle with.
Water is pumped from two water wells, reaching thousands of feet deep into an artesian aquifer, then stored within the massive underground, reinforced concrete water tanks, with a water distribution system being deployed to each bunker. Each bunker is buried and protected under thick berms of earth, with extensive grading for drainage, across the gently sloping grasslands.

This is a partial list of many things that disappear fast in an emergency. Look for things you should stock pile before the crisis. Many of these items can be used to barter for items that you or your family might want or need. For example: During the gold rush of 1849 the people who had shovels became wealthy from the miners who needed them. Remember: A wise man purchases his insurance before the fire starts. Create a scheduled plan to get any of these things.

Light: It’s fine to have battery-powered flashlights for your home — provided you have some extra batteries around. We love this Mag-Lite XL200 LED flashlight because it’s tough and has multiple modes including SOS and dimmer timer. It’s a good idea to have crank-powered flashlights as well. And make sure you have candles, like this pack of six 115-hour emergency candles.
For global catastrophic risks the costs of food storage become impractical for most of the population [54] and for some such catastrophes conventional agriculture would not function due to the loss of a large fraction of sunlight (e.g. during nuclear winter or a supervolcano). In such situations, alternative food is necessary, which is converting natural gas and wood fiber to human edible food.[55]
It’s one thing to have solar panels, another to have a generator, and quite a remarkably nice thing once the best of both worlds are mixed. Yes, this is high up there on my dream wishlist. No, it’s not at all a necessity, but would it make life one heck of a lot easier if you had this even during a power outage – hell yes. Also – “It takes the same amount of time to charge your device from a Goal Zero power pack as it does from the wall.” How cool is that??

After 15 minutes, I was startled to discover that the cereal had puffed up into a Kashi-like multitude of grains, flecked with tiny pieces of apple, complete with green peel, that looked just-chopped. It didn’t taste as good as it appeared: Eyeballing a fourth of the bag had resulted in a poor distribution of seasoning, yielding a flavor I can only describe as water laced with traces of cinnamon and sugar, though subsequent attempts tasted better.